2019-12-12 23:50:28 (edited by bookrage 2021-10-15 16:28:58)

hello all!

I know the ChoiceofGames series is a vast series and best of all, all of them are completely accessible. I have made it my mission to play every single one of them at least once, and at the leisurely way I play them, that's not likely to ever happen.

However, as I play, I'll update a list of what I have played and post little reviews as to my impressions of the games I play. I will
ealso keep a running ranking of games I've played through.


M
y current ranking of these, #1 being the best is as follows.

1. Choice of Kung Fu.
2. Diabolical
3. Choice of Broadsides
4. A Midsummer Night's choice
Hero's rise: The Hero project
Choice of the Ninja
Hero's Rise: The Prodigy
slammed
Reckless space pirates
The Orpheus Ruse
The Fleet
Affairs of the Court: Choice of Romance
Showdown at Willow Creek
Welcom to Moreautown
9. choice of the dragon
10. choice of zombies
11. Treasure Seekers of Lady Luck.
12. Choice of the Vampire
13. .  To the city in the clouds
14. Choice of the Star Captain
15. For Rent: Haunted House

I'll keep this list running. I'll review one game a week until I cover the 9 I have already played, at which point I will post reviews of games as I complete them. I am completing them in chronological order from the time they were released and I do not complete them quickly, so I'm going to be going over the classics for quite some time.

This is not meant to be a monologue however and I'd love to answer questions you might have about the titles. I however, will try to avoid spoilers and I will not give strategic advice. For example, in "hero's Rise: the Prodigy" I won't tell you how to get a perfect score.

see the next post which I am writing immediately to see how I am handling my reviews. Also see it as I am going to be up front with  my biases I am likely to bring to the table and how I generally play a Choiceofgames title.

also, as there will be many voices on this topic, and due to great advice, all of my posts that are actual reviews will be started with a header that has the following standard text.

Bookrage's review of "X"

This will be a heading and X will be the title of the gamebook in quotation marks.

update October 2021: I am starting to get some games that are very similar so I will also be writing comparison reviews with a heading such as the following.

Bookrages' "x" vs "y"

where x is one title and Y is another that is similar. In most cases I will not do this with parts of the same series but rather will do things with similar content such as games about knights or games about werwolves.

2019-12-13 00:05:01 (edited by bookrage 2019-12-13 00:45:38)

Okay, a bit of a rundown of my reviews when I begin to make them.

1. I will not review a title until I have played through it in its entirety at least once.
2. I play games as a straight monogamous male when possible, unless an achievement or something I'm aiming at can be earned by behaving otherwise.
3. I generally do persue romance if possible.
4. I approach these titles more as an avid reader than a gamer, and things like writing style or clarity mean more to me than they might to others.
5. despite being more of a reader, I really like achievements since they give more replay value to the game and also incentivize trying new play strategies or attempting new things when you play that you normally wouldn't.
6.  I prefer mechanics that are clear and easy to apply to a game, if the meaning of a mechanic is hard to grasp or choices of actions seem to be bizarre for whatstats of yours they use, I tend to get frustrated and it might hurt my assessment of a game.


When I review a game I will cover the following, possibly giving a 1-5 star scale for each.

1. genre: what genre the game fits in, also, if the way it is presented is either apt or misleading in what you get.

plot: will remain vague here and avoid spoilers, will paint it with brought strokes and again say whether it is misleading, creative, predictable, well-executed, and so on.

writing: Is the writing good? is it clear? Does the game railroad you a lot?

mechanics: Are the mechanics clear? Can you map actions to particular mechanics or is it hard to figure out? Are there any particularly unique mechanics or can the mechanics be particularly interesting at times?

Romance: what is romance like or how is it handled in this work for example, "Welcome to Moreautown" has set romanceable characters that do not change genders but respond to your actions accordingly, while "Diabolical" changes the pronouns, and at times, the names of romanceable NPCs based on what sexual preference you select in chapter 3.

railroading: within the context of the story, does it feel like your actions matter, or does it feel whatever actions you choose, you're just along for the ride?

achievments: Whether the game has achievments, and if so, are the achievements good? if not, how much does the game suffer, if at all, from not having them?

Feel free to ask any questions you want about any of my reviews or even these introductory posts at any time.

I'll be back next week with my first review of the title that started the whole line "Choice of the Dragon."

2019-12-13 06:32:40

Awesome Bookrage!  I wish you luck!
Even though this is obviously subjective, it will still serve as a good resource for those looking into playing these for the first time.

2019-12-13 09:09:46

Awesome. I look forward to read your reviews. Thanks a lot for doing this.

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/sorenjensen1988
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soerenjensen

2019-12-13 09:23:25

dude haunted house was great, how come you've ranked it number 9? And choice of dragon, being their first game, was really short and basic I think. Unless it got updated...

ReferenceError: Signature is not defined.

2019-12-13 10:50:05

No, there was no update to dragon. It's still very, very basic but everybody must start small.

We are pleased, that you made it through the final challenge, where we pretended we were going to murder you. We are throwing a party in honor of your tremendous success. Place the device on the ground, then lay on your stomach with your arms at your sides. A party associate will arrive shortly to collect you for your party. Assume the party submission position or you will miss the party.

2019-12-13 15:37:37 (edited by Dark 2019-12-13 15:52:18)

I'll be interested to hear these, I've played through several of the titles, both from hosted games and choiceofgames, albeit these days I'd probably prefer them on pc/online to Iphone, but don't really have the cash to change or start a new collection, indeed I've not bought any since their unified ap, which probably tells you how long it's been since I played. I also tend to alternate characters I play in gender, though still tend to play straight or by rather than actually gay.

Games I've played include:

Choice of the dragon:
Silly fun, I've played through three times following different paths, more an extended demo for the system than a game, especially the way you can pretty much act like a fool, make all the wrong choices and not get a game over.
Some of the writing made me smile though.

choice of broadsides:
Again not bad, though the machismo was a bit enforced, also I was less keen on the romance options by boasting about yourself, but maybe that's because I slightly got the boasting wrong, actually even though it’s  grown up than choice of the dragon, I’ve never brought myself to trying again and perhaps getting the romance and boasting right, though I did enjoy some of the piratical bits garrr!

choice of zombies:
Actually I really quite liked this one, not as good as zombie exodus, but I loved the different paths, achievements  and endings, albeit characterisation was less strong over all, which was a shame when set against the hosted title zombie exodus which is really strong on character and interaction.

Choice of the star captain:
Good humour and some interesting stat choices, though  this one really suffered from the problem that many Cog games do when you choose something given one choice and suddenly find you've made the arsehole choice by mistake, or where the author interprets the interplay of different character stats differently to the way you do.
didn't even finish this one, albeit I probably should get back to it.

hero's rise: for someone who really doesn't like super heroes, this one was surprisingly good.
I  especially liked the almost rpg like  need to keep a watch on stats, and the really different choices involved, also the way it felt like a total mess but still worked out.

to the city of the clouds:
Okay seriously not good here. ~Not much choice and a down right anti climactic climax. I even didn't bother going back to make the choice to get the best ending since after getting the second best ending I didn't really fancy doing it again. Definitely obviously an early creation, but not one with at least the silly redeeming fun of dragons to recommend it.

Affairs of the court, choice of romance:

One with a really interesting world, politics and magic system, played on a recommendation from sebby.
Unfortunately, it suffered from the fact that I played it just when getting together with MRS. Dark in 2016, so, after carefully putting together a political schemer character (a female one this time), suddenly got the option to throw in everything to marry the love of her life, I went for it, offending her entire family and basically ending the game early into the bargain big_smile.

This meant I got what to me was the good ending, but the one which pretty much stopped only %20 in.

In this case though I won't say it was the fault of the game, so much as me wanting art to imitate what I hoped would happen with life, which actually it did very shortly after, though nobody ended up getting too offended in that case.

Heroes rise: the hero project:
Again another one I need to replay, I particularly didn't like how it didn't quite import over from the first heroes rise properly, so the game started with me causing more of a disaster than I actually caused.
Also, this one went into reality tv and far less on hero missions, which  is very  much less my thing, particularly since my "be nice to team mates" choices seemed to get me very shafted, which wasn't good for a so called hero game, though again this one I probably need to retry.

Mecha ace:
Okay, this has to rank as one of the most truly depressing and wonderful experiences I've had in a gamebook. Writing is fantastic, from mech battles to the very state of the war, and I loved the other characters.
The only problem, the path I went down basically made the game uncompletable, killed my characters' love interest and best friend, and ended with a final battle that there was no way for me to win, since having a super awesome pilot suddenly lose his pilotting with no compensation was bad!

Again, one I really need to replay, because yee gods it was a good experience! albeit I haven't brought my self to given both how badly the original run went, and how emotionally invested I was in the characters and story.

Yeti’s Parole Officer:
Random scifi fun with lots of achievements to earn. The author did strike me as trying a bit too hard in some places, and most was more smile worthy than laugh out loud funny, but hay, it was pleasant (especially her obsession with fish and chips), albeit not really pleasant enough to make me want to go back and earn all those achievements. Still worth a play if you want something light and fluffy and don’t’ expect too much.

Creatures Such as We:
A rather lovely scifi landscapes and a portrait of life on the moon, however a game that tried to be a bit too philosophical for its own good. I admit though, since in rl I'm more likely to have the sort of conversations this game asks about the nature of art and interaction, seeing them in a game didn't really interest me as much as it perhaps should've done.
Also suffers a bit too much from the author trying to ask questions, but not really coming down on any one side, which is admirable in a debate, but less so in a game that you want to see have some closure for its characters.
I did like the game within a game though, albeit I wished it had more actual consequence rather than leaving the consequence up to the reader.

Choice of Robots:
Again, this one I ran into the problem of the choices not following the stats exactly, albeit  hi praise for this one suggests I should give it another try, and I admit though I tried a couple of paths, from super villain genius down, I didn't quite get any definite endings.

The Last Monster Master:
Okay, like  mecha ace this one actually suffers from being written a bit too well.
What I mean is, your a monster trainer taking care of monsters and training them for different jobs, however the descriptions of the creatures got me so worried, I found myself almost afraid to choose things in case my poor monsters got hurt big_smile.
It's odd, this, mecha ace and fate haven from hosted games have been some of the few times I've been so invested in an interactive story, that I actively am afraid of losing out, something which didn't bother me in the more actiony games like choice of zombies or heroes rise.

it's both a good and bad thing, though I probably ought to just harden my heart and try again,  like mecha ace this one really was good at getting me to care.

Champion of the Gods:
Okay, random fantasy fun with a destined hero, lots of gods and creature smiting in a griek myths inspired world.
only problem? the author just couldn't write convincing characters at all.
Everyone spoke in this faux epic sort of dialect which made the hole thing feel absolutely stilted, and meant I just didn't care about the characters' relationships at all

I mean who actually ever   would sy:

"Oh mother, I will miss your gentle care upon my journey"


Again, a shame, since the worlds, the magic and a lot of the mythic tasks and lore are interesting enough for a fantasy world, and there are achievements to earn, I just never felt the need to go back because of the terrible, terrible dialogue.

Pendragon Rising@
This one I loved the world, since historical King Arthur is always interesting and the premise court my attention.
The problem? The author just plane couldn't be consistant with choices, or so it seemed to me.

Even if  choose for example to engage in physical combat, you'll suddenly find yourself engaging in a war of words and losing, and if you choose to make an enemy into a friend, you suddenly offend him and have to duel him.

the idea was good, the writing interesting, I particularly liked the contrast between rational roman christianity and "the straight path", and the magic of the druids, but again, the inconsistency meant I never finished this one.

And just for the record here are the hosted games I've tried:

Land of Three Classes:
Really terribly writtenn, and choices that are so damn obvious it's ridiculous, I mean your pretty much asked if you want to be a warrior thief or mage in every scene, and each choice you make increases that class.
If it were an rpg dungeon crawl it might be fun, albeit it'd need better mechanics, but as a gamebook, no way!

Zombie exodus:
Okay this is epic! albeit I hope the game has since been updated, since I kept getting to unwinnnable situations.
Still, really great characterisation, I mean who'd assume the guy with the immunity to the  plague was such an arse?

Also suffers slightly from interactive fiction syndrome, given you need to perform some of the right actions on the right thing, and I never worked those out, but really despite never getting a definite ending (other than those where you die), I can highly recommend this one, indeed it makes choice of zombies look a little sick.
Fatehaven:
Wow, this was amazing! I do wish the author would write dialogue a little more like narrative and less like a script, because it sometimes was hard to tell who was speaking, but for just a plane good D&D fantasy story told very well, with characters you care about this one hit the spot.
It’s odd, so much in here is cliché, from the mysterious mage in the woods, the evil inquisitorial church, the gang of thieves, but it was just plane well put together, and in the end that really mattered!
Only miner thing, I do wish there was a way at the start to become different element types.

Apex Patrol@
Rowlocking good scifi adventure, with propper stats for your ship, crew and captain, feels like taking part in a 1950's B movie, and all the better for it, I mean at the end of the game I literally got to punt the villain into a collapsing star!
the relationships and characters worked for what they are, but really this one  all about the combat and big explosions and “she canna take it cappan she donna have the power!” sort of situations, and those it does very well indeed.

The Shadow Horror:
Creepy haunted house time.
I particularly liked in this one how it takes the simple premise of your car breaking down and you getting inside a house, then changes things as night falls, even down to changing all the locations.
it feels in some ways more like an interactive fiction game than a gamebook, given you have to do lots of examining of objects to get through, but luckily the author put in ways to win, or at least get an ending without need to try doing everything to everything, too much, plus there's even a walkthru and commentary as prizes for finishing the game.

Definitely an example of how to do haunted house games well, and take all the old horror cliches and make them work.

Samurai of Hyuga:
Only played the first of these, but yee gods it was good!

Awesome characters, a great story, and my god a hell of a cliffhanger! I particularly liked how real the people in your team are, and how the  didn't punish you for following your choices of traits.

Wow, just talking about this one makes me want to play the series, especially  it’s apparently on the 4th volume now, and if they’re the quality of the first, they should be awesome!

Okay, this turned into a bit more of a ramble than I thought, but there’s what I’ve played so far and a few thoughts at least, I’ll be interested to see what you think Bookrage, particularly to those games we have in common.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2019-12-13 17:15:27

two things right away that are actually addressed to me but a bit more when I actually cover these games.

Choice of the dragon: I have it above some of the choices because Although I know it is pretty much just a tutorial on how to play a choice of games title, it is good for what it is, there's a nice little bit of snark, and  the achievements are good and reasonable.

As for why I find "For Rent: Haunted House" on the bottom of my list, I never felt like any of my decisions in the game mattered. I've played it a few times, very differently each time and yet I felt railroaded the whole time and like nothing I did really changed anything, the stats also didn't make sense to me or how to use them, so I'm down on it for that, though admittedly, the humor in the game at times is pretty good, while at other times it falls flat for me pretty badly.

but that will be the sixth review I do I believe. I'm glad to see there's an interest though.

2019-12-13 17:31:03

I would ask you guys a favor though, I'm having a severe technical problem and I want to know if the rest of my fellow IOS users are having it.

Right now, from inside the game, I am not able to access my stats page. I can get the "achivements" and stop options, but now, stats are not reachable.

For those of you running the current version of IOS and Choiceofgames, could you check that and if you see it, could you please report it. It happens in all games for me.

2019-12-13 18:13:45

actually surprised, the staff got right back to me on this within a couple of minutes of me reporting it. It isn't solved but wasn't expecting such a positive and quick response.

But check out your ones if  things don't go well and they don't find a way to fix this. I think they will quickly though based on how helpful they instantly were so far in terms of eagerness to tackle the problem.

2019-12-13 21:32:53

Hello a little tip for those playing on older IOS devices.

I play Choiceofgames on an Appl ipad Air2 and had a weird glitch where I couldn't get to see my stats, which is very helpful for dealing with choices in-game.

I got on a long back and forth with support where they were very helpful but found a way around it. If you go landscape, your stats are displayed all the time. Also for me, even after going back to portrait, the stats menu was now available again, though sometimes it was labeled as "full screen mode" even though it  still worked as the stat menu button.

2019-12-13 22:06:41

do we have to buy each game one bye one?

2019-12-13 23:16:30 (edited by bookrage 2019-12-13 23:56:37)

The Omnibus app is how you access all of the main titles, while "Hosted Games" which I do not play currently is how you get access to their Hosted games titles and "Heart's Choice" is their brand new line of romance gamebooks released this month on its own app.

A few games, such as "choice of the Dragon" and "choice of broadsides" are free to play through their entirety with options to pay to remove ads. Most titles however cost a few bucks each, but have a demo mode that usually lets you play between about 20% to 40% of the way through the story to see if you like it.

most games cost between $3 and $6 with most being about $4 that I've seen. However, if you catch a game in quick release or on sale, you can get it for even less. Also if you buy the game once on your account, you have it forever on all devices. A new title comes out in Choiceofgames about once every 2 weeks or so. Because of that I'll probably never catch up in my reviews to current titles.

So to the previous question, do you have to buy them individually? The short answer is Yes. The long answer adds that some are free, all of them have a sort of "try me" feature,  and they are pretty cheap for permanent access.

the omnibus app itself is also free.

and as for which ones you ought to buy since you have to take them on one by one for those that aren't free, I and those discussing on this thread (my name is going to be on here but don't want to be the only speaker) might help you separate the wheat from the Chaff and decide what titles are for you and what ones are not. I will put my opinions of the titles I play, but I will try to give objective information where I can too as long as it isn't super-spoilery so you can make your own choices. I know some games I've played and disliked are more due to my own personal taste than their quality, while a couple are probably not as good as I think they are but strike my fancy. Keep in mind one poster really liked "For Rent: Haunted House" while it is the worst title I have played so far in my opinion, and I am not saying my opinion is necessarily the best one here.

2019-12-14 02:19:30

I really enjoyed my first playthrough of the latest Choice of, In The Service of Mrs. Claus.
I found the writing interesting. Follows some tropes, but always finds a way to keep you on your toes. Also, I actually found the story really unpredictable. Usually in a Choice of, or Hosted, you have an idea of where the story might go, but with this, they really take you on a journey, and there's some moments in here I was genuinely not expecting, some of it is a little out of left field in the later game, but when stuff happens, it kind of makes sense and there's always some sort of resolution.
As for hosted, I can highly, highly recommend two games, in joint first: Life of a Wizard, and Tin Star.
Life of a Wizard:
This game honestly feels like an adventure. Fantasy tropes galore but there's quite a lot to do here, and it goes on. Also, the game's writing style absolutely stands out.
Tin Star: to me, this is the ChoiceScript game to beat all ChoiceScript games, accept for perhaps Zombie Exodus, which I sort of count in a league of it's own. But for a standalone game, Tin Star is a must play. You can tell that the author behind this one, really, really wanted to do this, and seemingly loved every single second of it. It's set in the old west, and the detail is incredible. Everything you do, gets closure at the end, including every  character you meet. The ending section takes all of your choices into account and in several things that you can pick, closes your story, and it feels like you've been on a journey and absolutely earned it.

2019-12-14 05:08:41

The fact that Choice of Games did not want to mainline Zombie Exodus because they already have a zombie-based title is honestly ridiculous. If anything, they should shunt the Choice of Zombies title to HG and mainline Zombie Exodus and Zombie Exodus: Safe Haven, although Safe Haven has more RPG elements and so that might not be preferred.
As for games I'd recommend in the main choice line, Magics and Robots are great, Diabolical is pretty good and Heros Rise is also good, although preachy at some select points. A Wise Use of Time also stands out to me, as do the Grand Academy for Villains and Psy-High  games. I won't individually review these at this time, but they are all fantasy/sci-fi, mostly sci-fi although Magics is fantasy and Grand Academy can sorta be fantasy, I guess.

2019-12-14 13:14:02

i sort of liked choice of the cat

2019-12-14 18:03:10

Sabers of ininity is also one wich a fantastic setting and wonderful amount of extra lore to read if you're into that.  Same author as Mecha Ace, which I need to give another go to.

2019-12-15 02:59:48 (edited by bookrage 2019-12-28 04:30:45)

Bookrage's Review of "Choice of the dragon."

I've got some time on my hands so I'm going to write  my first review now.

This time I'm  covering the very first choiceofgames title "Choice of the Dragon."

Genre: extremely vanilla high fantasy. What it says you do in the little blurb about it is entirely accurate.

plot: The game is a loosely connected, but still connected set of events that takes you from your start as a lairless wyrmling to your ultimate victory, or lack therof.  in a final confrontation and dealing with the legacy of what you have done in one final small challenge. You do typical dragon-like things you see in most fantasy, kidnapping princesses, fighting dragons, fighting in wars, and going about a reign of terror, among other things. Nothing in this game is surprising foranyone particularly familiar with fantasy tropes. There is little originality in how dragons are depicted and the world is not particularly rich.

Mechanics: This is one of the game's strengths, as you make your dragon character, the explanations of the key abilities in the game are well-explained, finesse is not mapped particularly well and if you are going for it, there is some guesswork in making Finesse decisions consitantly. also, there is little strategic payoff from vigilance and quite a few drawbacks. However, with the balance and mutual opposition of 3 pairs of stats definitively explained, a mechanic that occurs frequently in other titles, this is a good primer to learn to play. there are also solid score-like stats that are just a percentage, not tied to another stat like infamy, wealth, and the enigmatic number for Blasphemy, (not going to tell you what it means here,.) for the most part, the mechanical side of this title is pretty solid. and injury, which can pile up a long time, but can make a big difference at one point in the story.

writing: the writing is pretty commonplace and as I said above, not much originality to it. However, it is crisp, clear, and easy to follow, which makes it easy for anyone, including the children it is supposed to be appropriate for to grasp. Also, although the story is somewhat lacking in "Wow!" factor, it is is good for what it is. I see this title as largely a Choice of Games tutorial and if you take that assessment into account, it is very good for what it is.

romance: romance is tacked on in a single chapter, but it is more of a strategic exercise than good characterization. None of the other possible mates even have names. However, there are a few  ways you can make decisions that will effect the end of the game and some of your scores in this chapter. If you are into dragon romance for some reason, this won't satisfy.

achievments: not very many, but all of them clear and very obtainable. They also all reward different playstyles. You even get 2 different ones actually for dying in the two possible ways you can die in the game. Since there are achievements for finishing the game with high scores in all of the 6 parts of the balanced stats, and that the balanced stats are mutually exclusive with one increasing while the other decreased, to get those, you would have to play the game a minimum of 3 times. There are also 3 possible endings to the game, each with an achievement so that gives the game a lot of replay value.

railroading: For its simplicity and the part that it is the first title, the game is surprisingly open. You have the same events in relative order hit you in the same order, but in some choice of games titles, they just yank you back on the path if you choose something that doesn't go along with the pre-planned story. All the decisions you make feel like they matter, and there is no "You think about this but you do this instead" which you see in a lot of other games. That might happen if some of your personality stats are too high or too low, but that is still in the long run the result of your actions.

closing remarks: Choice of the Dragon is one of the shortest titles in the Choice Of Games lines, being a tiny 30,000 words, and you can finish the game in under an hour. However, I choose to view it as a sort of introduction or tutorial into how the line of gamebooks works, as it employs many mechanics you see elsewhere in other titles, often not openly explained there. Also considering that, the writing is not bad, and I found the game, despite being relatively bland, enjoyable. With good achievements, a good introduction to the line of games,  and easily-understood  mechanics that don't tend to throw you for a loop. It's a good first entrance into the  Choice of Games line and it is free,  which should be an incentive to try it. I actually have played it over half a dozen times and still like it. It is not good fiction, and it is not particularly original, but it does not have may flaws either, hence why it currently is relatively in the center of my list at the time of writing this. Also as a tutorial sort of game, its shortness could be viewed as an asset rather than a flaw.

Christmas week, I'll cover another free title that has more merit on its own and also is good for entering Choiceofgames play. "Choice of Broadsides."

2019-12-15 18:00:31

Thumbs up there bookrage, I generally agree.
BTW I don't think I can find my purchice receits for apple, but I am thinking of playing some of the COG games on the website, only I don't see any login details.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2019-12-15 21:08:15

I don't recall quite how it goes on  the website, I just played a couple titles there originally, but there is a "restore Purchases" option on  the omnibus, where you can bring in your apple account and stuff there.

Usually I think they prompt a login either at the start of a game or you  can do so when you reach the end of a demo section.

2019-12-15 22:15:51 (edited by Dark 2019-12-15 22:19:31)

According to their Faq page you can't actually transfer from Ios to Choiceofgames.com without
actually contacting them and showing receipts, and since I bought most of the games a good while ago on Ios I have no idea where to get those.

On the plus side, their faq page did tell me how to transfer things from the separate aps to the big omnibus app, which I confess is part of the reason I've been neglecting their titles recently, so I was able to start that process.
It'll take a while since I've downloded a good amount of the separate aps and indeed bought many of them back in the day, and they need to be transfered one at a time.

On the plus side though, it does work and I've made a start on cleaning up my Ios folder. I will say I like the way that the  omnibus ap actually lets you click on the author of a given game and see other games by them, which is a function  I've wanted in choice of games for a while.
I also replayed choice of the dragon just for old times sake.

It was fun, and I agree with Bookrage's above comments.
One issue though I did notice, is if going for brutality, it's often difficult to tell which  choices affect the brutality stat and which don't, or maybe I just got a bit carried away with eating princesses in that game big_smile.

Still, oddly enough the game is so short, replaying and going for achievements is relatively easy, which is actually  a point in its favour, plus, well the humour did make me laugh again big_smile.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2019-12-15 23:26:51 (edited by Lucas1 2019-12-15 23:27:31)

I think that if you import a game into the omnibus, you should then be able to play it on the web since they use the same account system. Could be wrong because mostly I buy stuff on the web anyways.

2019-12-16 01:05:19 (edited by Dark 2019-12-16 01:08:28)

I just tried restoring on the website, but it claims I haven't bought the games, and according to  Faq you need to manually email them receipts as proof of purchase to transfer from Ioss, goodness knows how I'd get those receipts out of Apple, particularly because some were bought with my credit card, and some before I changed the email address on my Apple Id.

I don't mind playing on Ios too much though, not if I can sort out the sprawling  mess of all the programs vs the omnibus ap, which it seems I can do, albeit it'll take quite a while to get them all transferred across since there was a point I bought all the games as a matter of course, although I haven't played too many of them, which is something I would like to at least somewhat remedy now.

also, as it probably looks as though I'll be waiting around in hospitals quite a bit,  something like the Cog games to play might be good.

To actually have some fun though, I've bought in the service of Mrs. Claws; getting the crimbo discount,  and am three chapters in and liking so far.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2019-12-16 01:18:10

I found Brutality in Choice of the Dragon quite easy to manage and build, it was Finesse and disdain that proved the most difficult, I still haven't gotten the fineese achievement myself, nor the wealth one.

2019-12-16 05:03:41 (edited by Dark 2019-12-16 05:34:06)

@Bookrage, oddly enough I remember the finesse achievement I got on my first playthrough, because finesse tended to go with honour, and I think I  the wealth one when I decided to smash things up.
the one I've never worked out is stopping your own heart.

Well I've just finished in the service of Mrs. Clause, and as this is a review topic I'll post some thoughts here, since this topic is likely to have a longer shelflife than the main one in new releases, and I did say what I thought of other Cog titles previously.

I really liked the world and the mix of random powers, indeed it reminded me heavily of Terry Pratchett's hog father, which is definitely a good thing, also massive credit for writing a game with very fluid gender characters and romance options that wasn't in your face or overly preachy about it.

I only had two miner issues.
First, as with many later cog titles, it's not always  clear when your on the "increase character stats" phase, and when your on the actual game where those stats will be tested, this meant I had a massively high christmas cheer score, and only mediocre tinkering, which meant I failed some of the tests later on when I couldn't rely on christmas cheer, indeed there was one test towards the end when I simply was just not given the right stats to test so directly missed out on something helpful.

I  thought this one suffered slightly from having too many characters, including stats for characters who were only in one scene, though I did like the part when multiple characters turned up at the climax, indeed some of the climactic moments in this were pretty awesome.

I won't say much surprised me, then again I probably took one of the most straight forward paths, finishing up married to Mrs. Clause, though again romantically the other character I was involved with sort of didn't have much to do, though I was glad to  get the chance to break it off with her when it was clear I was interested in becoming the next santa big_smile.

There are some fun achievements, though I'm not sure how much the story deviates if played through multiple times and if other paths lead to really different episodes, or just the same events told from a different slant, indeed some of the choices I got indicated as much.

Still, it was a fun way to spend a few hours and a nice reminder to me of how much fun the Cog games can b.
Not up there with the likes of mecha ace, but not half bad either.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)